Of Sunlight and Shadows
by taylortot
Summary: Childhood Friends AU! Akihito and Mirai meet as kids and become fast friends. Things seem picture perfect until tragedy strikes they are forced to deal with the consequences. Akihito/Mirai.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I might write a second part if this gets a good reception! Thanks for reading and let me know what you think!

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"Hey, little girl. . .why are you crying?"

Mirai's head bobs up instantly, her red frames slipping down her nose. She didn't even hear anyone coming over the sound of her heart thumping erratically in her chest, the cursed, poisoned blood rushing in her ears, the painful lump of self-loathing settled in the back of her throat. Her glassy eyes look to the opening of the painted concrete tunnel where a boy her age kneels at the mouth, his blonde hair a tousled mess, the twilight silhouetting him against the darkness.

"I'm not crying!" Mirai cries obstinately. "I just have a cold." But she reaches up to wipe at the salty tear tracks on her face and wipes her running nose on the sleeve of her yellow cardigan.

They boy clearly doesn't believe her and she feels panic rising up in her as he enters the tunnel and begins to crawl toward her. She presses her back to the chalk filled walls and resists the urge to flee out the other end of the tube.

"Are you lost?" he asks her as he settles in across the way. It's too dark for either of them to see each other's faces, save for the sliver of an outline against their cheeks and shoulders. "Sometimes I cry when I'm lost, even though my mom says it's silly. She always knows how to find me because I smell weird."

Mirai notices that he does, indeed, smell kind of weird. She feels the panic again. "A-a-a-are you a youmu?!" she demands in a fluster, sniffling.

"Only half!" he says quickly, desperately. "Don't be afraid of me!" Something about his voice mirrors her own emotions and it calms her. She smears her sleeve under her nose again.

"Why would I be afraid?" she asks, curling her kneels into her flat chest, tucking her chin against her legs.

The boy sighs. "Everyone always ends up afraid of me. We have to move a lot because I get into trouble, and people become afraid. My mom says she doesn't want me to grow up in a place where people are scared of me. We just moved into the 'partments over there." He points at one wall of the tunnel. "How did you know I was a youmu?"

"I'm a Spirit World Warrior," she replies in a matter-of-fact voice. "I'm a part of the Blood clan. We just moved here, too, because bad people are looking for us." In talking to this boy, she forgot that she was sad in the first place.

"Is that why you were crying?" he asks.

"No," she says, her voice suddenly very small. The lump returns to her throat and her lip trembles. "P-P-People a-are afraid of me too. Because I'm part of the Blood clan."

He sounds mystified. "Really? That's kinda weird. You don't seem very scary to me." There's a pregnant pause in the tunnel before he speaks again, something like a grin in his voice. "I guess that means we're kinda the same, huh?"

She thinks about it for a moment before the lump in her throat disappears and the tightness in her chest eases. Moving to a new town she thought she wouldn't have a chance to make friends - she was afraid that they'd all treat her the way people besides her parents always did. But this boy didn't seem fazed at all, in the same way that his being a youmu hardly unsettled her.

"I guess so," she says with a sudden smile. "I'm Mirai and I'm five."

"Mirai-chan," the boy says in a lovely way. It makes her excited. "I'm Akihito and I'm six."

"Akihito-kun," she mocks lightly. They peer at each other in the darkness before giggling, their laughter bouncing off the walls of the tunnel.

"AKKUN!"

Akihito's mirth cuts short. "Oh, that's my mom. It's probably dinner time. Do you wanna eat too?"

Mirai becomes apprehensive. "I dunno. Is your mom a youmu?"

"Nope! She's a Spirit World Warrior like you!" He begins to crawl out and then extends a hand back into the tunnel. "C'mon!"

Smiling - feeling overjoyed that he is willingly offering to touch her - she crawls to him, scuffing up her knees against the concrete, and places her bandaged hand in his. He grins and its the first time she's actually seen his smile in the light of day, but she thinks that he must be the most wonderful boy in the world. His fingers curl around hers and then he's tugging her across the playground.

"Mom! Look, I got a friend!"

::::

He holds her hand a lot. Mirai is glad for it; friends hold hands, right? It makes her happy that he wants to touch her and that he's not afraid of her. She thought she hurt him last month with her blood, but that's when he told her that he couldn't die, and things made a lot more sense to her. It's okay. She would protect Akihito-kun forever, because he wasn't afraid of her, even when she drew her blood sword.

They're sitting on the bottom lip of the slide, their thighs and shoulder flattened against each others, hands tangled in her lap. A sloppy braid he wove together flutters in the wave of her short, pale hair as the wind picks up.

"My birthday is next week," he says as she kicks her legs back and forth. "Wanna come to my party?"

She lights up like a firework. "Yes!"

He grins as he looks at her and then uses an index finger to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "You know, I never really thought about glasses until I met you, Mirai-chan, but they're really cute."

She blushes and squeezes his hand to the point of pain. "Don't say weird things or I won't come to your party at all!"

He giggles and nudges her shoulder with his. "Yeah, you will!"

"Nope!"

"Yes!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Yeah, you will, because you're my best friend!"

She grows abruptly serious, her eyes shining as she looks at him. "_I'm_ your best friend?"

He stares at his knees, his cheeks turning red. "Is that okay?"

Feeling flustered and elated all at once, she leans over and presses her lips against the curve of his cheek. He jumps under her and whips his head around, their noses bumping before she jumps back too. They both glow like stoplights.

"You're my best friend too," she says.

::::

They spend two years together before they are ripped apart.

It's a normal day at first, Akihito walks her home from school, balancing on the curb as he walks, arms splayed out. He purposely ruffles her hair when she purposefully walks too close to him. She blushes a lot around him now, he's noticed, but he blushes a lot too even though they don't hold hands the way they used to. She can't remember a day that she hasn't spent with him.

"Akihito-kun," she says conversationally, intertwining her fingers behind her back, "whatcha doin' this weekend?"

"Mmm, Yuuki-kun invited me to a sleepover, but I dunno if I wanna go yet," he replies, sneaking a glance over at her as they turn the last corner. Her apartment with her parents is just on the end of the block. "Why?"

"Well," she starts, before her voice is cut off, her sudden grin turning to a look of panic. He feels the dread grow in his stomach as he follows her eyes to where they are fixated on her apartment, where the door is broken and forced ajar. After a moment of hesitation, she unravels her bandage and leaves it on the sidewalk, running toward the apartment as she draws her blood out.

"Mirai-chan!" he yells, chasing her. "Wait! Don't!" She doesn't listen to him, stumbling over the debris of the door until she disappears into the house. He follows her without hesitation, lurching forward until he grabs her wrist and forces her to stop. "Are you stupid?"

She's still not listening. "Mom?" she calls out desperately. "Daddy?"

"It's not safe here," Akihito hisses, tightening his hand around her wrist. "They're gone, Mirai - we gotta tell my mom."

Mirai turns her wide, honey eyes to him and he's learned to fall in love with glasses, with the way she wears them, even as her heart is breaking. "Where'd they go?" she whispers.

"I dunno, but we gotta tell my mom! C'mon!" He yanks her back out the door and runs, tugging her along as he races toward his apartment a few blocks away. The sand kicks up under their shoes as they cut across their playground and then he's bursting through the door and his mom is pacing at the table in a strange outfit that resembles a cat, Mirai thinks vaguely, the tears rolling down her face.

"Akkun, Mirai-chan!" Kanbara-san says as both kids tumble inside, the little girl tear-streaked and trembling.

"You knew, didn't you!" Akihito yells at his mother, turning red in the face. "You knew about Mirai's parents! Why didn't you come get us at school?!"

She bends down and places a hand on her son's shoulder. "By the time I arrived to pick you up, you'd both already started walking home," she says seriously and not at all like her usual self. "The important thing is that you made it here safely."

"K-K-K-Kanbara-san?" Mirai says in a soft, choked voice, drawing the attention of the mother and son duo. "W-W-Where's my mommy? A-and my dad?"

Kanbara Yayoi's face distorts into despair and Akihito squeezes Mirai's hand tightly, pulling her in closer to him so that he can put his arm over her shoulder. "The bad guys got them," Yayoi says softly.

::::

It's hours later before the tears finally stop and she's left trembling. Akihito presses her against him, his arms wrapped around her as they lay in his bed, his mother pacing around in the kitchen on the phone. They can hear her talking to someone named Inami in a low voice, but his attention is focused only on her, his forehead flattened against hers as he runs his fingers through the ends of her hair.

"I'm really sorry, Mirai-chan," he whispers to her very, very gently. Her parents were really nice people - they seemed happy when Mirai brought him over for dinner and play dates on the weekends, despite the fact that he's half-youmu. He's sad that out of everyone in the world, it had to be Mirai that lost her parents. It seems so cruel to force a loss like this on her - she already struggles so much and he hates that. He wants things to be happy for her. To be easy, for her.

Her tiny hands fist in his shirt as she shakes. "D-D-D-Do you think the bad guys will find me, too?"

"Even if they did," he says, suddenly fierce with determination, "my mom would stop them. And I would protect you. I won't let anything hurt you!"

"Akihito-kun," she squeaks brokenly, burying her face in his chest. His heart aches and he pulls her tight against him. It's not fair, he thinks, though he is immensely relieved that she is safe, and here in his arms. He couldn't imagine losing her. "Akihito-kun," she mumbles, "I love you."

He presses his face into her hair. "I love you too, Mirai-chan."

::::

"Mirai-chan?" The early morning light streaks through the blinds of Akihito's window. Mirai's eyelids peel back sleepily as she peers over Akihito's shoulder - who's steady breathing and body heat are calling her back to the safety of unconsciousness where he still resides - to see Kanbara-san standing in the doorway with a sad smile on her face. "Hey, sweetheart. There's someone here to see you."

She clutches suddenly at Akihito's shirt, her voice breaking. "Is it the bad guys?"

Yayoi shakes her head vigorously. "Of course not! She's a nice lady - a friend."

Friends are nice, Mirai thinks as she stares at the woman, automatically seeing Akihito's grin in her face at the thought of the word.

"Can I bring Akihito-kun?" she whispers.

Yayoi's smile falters a bit but she nods. "Yes, hon. Come on out when you're ready, okay?" She leaves the door ajar as her footsteps fade down the hallway. Mirai turns back to the sleeping boy beside her, his arms still draped over her. She wrinkles her nose when she sees the drool stain on the pillow beside his mouth, but her drool stain is on his shirt and she had no room to be disgusted. Tentatively, she allows her trembling hands to touch his chin.

"Akihito-kun," she says softly. "Akihito-_kuuuuun_."

He blinks very slowly and then moans, twisting his face into the pillow. "What is it? Are you okay?" His voice is sleep-ridden, but it sounds like honey and she is suddenly afraid of the feeling in her gut.

"Your mom said there's someone here to see me," she whispers. "I'm scared."

That wakes him up abruptly. "Did she say who?" he asks, propping himself up on his arm, gazing down at her where she's still trembling from the night before, her hair a halo around her head, hands still fisted in his shirt.

"A nice lady friend," she replies.

He stares at her for a moment before rolling out of the bed, pulling her with him. "Well then, c'mon." Akihito grabs her glasses off his bed stand and slips them onto her face before wrapping his arm around her shoulder and leading her out to the kitchen. A brown-eyed woman sits at the table with his mom, a cup of coffee between both of their hands, somber expressions settled on their faces.

Immediately, both of them look to the children, Mirai huddled into Akihito's side. He's got a protective look about him, curled around her as she clings to his shirt. The stranger smiles at them.

"Hi there, Kuriyama-san," the woman says pleasantly. "My name is Inami Tomoe. I heard what happened to your parents, and I'm here to take care of you."

Mirai freezes. "I thought Akihito-kun was going to take care of me."

The adults exchange a look that gives Akihito a stomach ache, his arm pulling her in even closer. He wants to keep Mirai safe, but, he realizes with sudden despair, that maybe he _can't_. He turns to his best friend. "Hey, I'll always take care of you," he says with a sense of false cheer. "But other people can help, right?"

She seems to soften up at that. "Y-Yeah."

::::

Mirai doesn't think the hug can possibly last long enough. "You'll write me letters, won't you?" she mutters into his shirt.

He nods against her shoulder. "Yeah, of course."

"And you won't forget?"

"I'll never forget you."

She pulls away slightly to look up at him and she's crying again and so is he. "This is for the best, right?"

"Inami-san said she had daughters," he tells her. "You'll have friends and you'll be safe! It'll be fun." He's trying to convince himself; it's important that she's safe, but he doesn't know how he's supposed to go back to a life without her. She was the only friend he had that understood him, who knew every part of him and still loved him either way. It's going to be so hard, he thinks, to watch that car drive away.

"I wish you could come," she says sadly.

"Me too," he replies. "But Mom said we gotta leave, too."

She stares at him for a moment before slipping the golden ring her parents gave her off of her index finger. "Here, Akihito-kun," her voice is a whisper.

"I can't take that from you, Mirai-chan," he mumbles, though he desperately wants to. "You need it for your powers."

She shakes her head and her glasses slip down her nose. "I don't care. I'll get a new one." She presses it into his hand and lurches forward for another hug, a sob ripping from her mouth. "I'll miss you!"

Akihito smothers his face into her hair, wishing that this was all a really bad dream.

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He sits on the porch long after she's gone and Yayoi comes to take a seat beside him.

"I won't be able to talk to her ever again, will I?" he asks in a tone that makes him sound much older than any eight-year-old has a right to sound.

For once, his mother is solemn. "I'm sorry, Akkun."

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She's fifteen now. He never calls. He never writes. As far as she knows, he's dropped off the face of the earth. It shouldn't matter - she was five when she met him and seven when she left. But it does - he does. He's imprinted into her heart and even when she's sleeping her mouth shapes around his name and she sighs because she misses him so much it's like he died that day with her parents, too. She really could have used him when she murdered Yui. Maybe he would have held her the way he did when she was told her parents were gone and whispered that he loved her into her hair.

She doesn't even know if he remembers her, but that doesn't matter either because she remembers him. She doesn't know, though, that he walks around every day with her ring on a chain around his neck. That he stares at the ceiling of his new apartment, lonely in the silences that suffocates him. That he wants to tell her there's more to the monster inside of him than anyone could have ever dreamed. That he sits on a bench at a playground near his house because it reminds him of her and her pale hair and her bell-like laughter.

So when she gets the call from a woman named Nase Izumi about killing a creature called Beyond the Boundary, she takes it. She owes the Nase woman, but she also needs to leave this place. To move on. In the basement of the Nase manor, the picture of Beyond the Boundary projected in front of her, the monster's face is so distorted by its surface, youmu form that she does not recognize the cowlicks of its hair or the curve of his cheek or the shape of his eyes.

Her heart turns cold, however, when later that night, Izumi sends her a photo of the human form of her target, a boy named Akihito Kanbara in a yellow sweater, an easy going smile on his face. Knees turning to jelly, she leans against the wall trembles.

Somewhere across town, Akihito-kun presses the metal of her ring against his mouth.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: ahhh a lot of you seemed to want a second part, so here it is! I'll probably end up writing a third part to it in the future too tbh I didn't expect this to be such a big project lmao. I hope you enjoy it!

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She stares at her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

The water facet is louder than the blood pounding in her ears and she has to take deep breaths to steady her nerves otherwise she thinks she really might stick her head under the running water to get her mind off this horrible anxiety trembling in her hands. Mirai still isn't sure what to do. She promised Izumi that she'd kill Beyond the Boundary, but that was before she found out the monster resided inside her most precious childhood friend.

Akihito-kun was special to her, she wasn't going to deny that. Even if they hadn't spoken in 8 years, killing him is impossible. Raising her blood sword against him would be tantamount to ramming it through her own chest. Its almost embarrassing, how often she looks at the picture of him that Izumi sent her on her phone. He looks so good and he grew up so well, she thinks, even if there is a tiredness rimming his coffee-stained eyes.

Izumi is expecting a status report soon, on Mirai's progress with eliminating Beyond the Boundary. But she blinks at her flustered, frustrated expression in the mirror because there isn't any other option than to refuse the job. What else can she do? They can lock her up. Put her in a jail cell for the next forty years for what she'd done to Yui. Mirai would rather die than kill Akihito.

It's been almost a week now since she joined the school and she still hasn't approached him. She tells herself its because their paths just haven't crossed yet, but deep down it's because she's a little scared. Nothing changes if he doesn't remember her, but. . . she doesn't want that. She wants things to change. Wants him to remember her. Mirai doesn't expect things to be the way they were as children - of course not, she's not an idiot - but he was the only one who understood her so completely. She misses that. Misses him.

Most of all, she misses how safe he made her feel. He was always such a sweet kid, comforting her and promising her that things would be alright. Mirai hasn't ever felt that safe since.

She takes a deep breath and blinks at herself. "This is unpleasant."

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Akihito leans against the window and sets the book down on his lap with a sigh. Mitsuki said it was her favorite book she'd read this year, but his interest in it is ebbing away. The protagonist is too extraordinary, the circumstances too bland for such a flawless character. To be honest, it's on the negative side of boring. He'd rather sit on the window sill and admire the sunset as it casts it's last golden rays across the majority of the town, down in the valley. Something about the sunlight slanting across the rooftops reminds him of happier days, when a little girl saw past the monster inside of him.

His right hand plays absently at the chain around his neck, pulling it out from behind the un-buttoned button-up shirt and the loosened tie. The window is cool against his cheek as he rests his head there, allowing his eyes to wander the students leaving the school grounds. Somewhere behind him, Mitsuki turns a page in her book and makes a popping sound as she removes the lollipop from her mouth.

"You're going to break the chain if you keep tugging at it like that," she says blandly, rupturing the silence unexpectedly.

He drops the chain and the ring serving as its pendant back against his chest. "Thanks," he replies sarcastically, not looking away from the students walking home to glance at her. Truthfully, Akihito went through two necklaces a year - once he almost lost the ring on it when it broke, but had luckily found it lying in the grass outside his apartment the next day. It was just a habit he couldn't shake. Touching the ring made him feel like he was a little bit closer to the girl from his childhood.

She's fading in his memories a little bit every day, and the hope that he could find solace in someone like that again fades with them.

"You're more irritating today than usual," Mitsuki observes.

He makes a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat and continues to ignore her, instead staring out at the students who are making their way out of the school gates.

He sits in the window on the third floor but his eye catches on the curling, pale hair of a pink sweater girl near the gates. His heart pauses for a moment in his chest and he sucks in a surprised breath, because he is absolutely sure that she is suddenly here at his school, in a town that neither of them grew up in. He clenches his hand hard around the necklace and then shoves himself away from the window and sprints out of the room, his belongings forgotten on the table.

It might not even be her, he reasons. It might just be the fact that her birthday is approaching and he's thinking about her more than usual. Making him see things that aren't there. The sunset is in the position where any blonde hair could easily look peachy.

Students step away from him warily as he fights his way to the gates once he's reached the first floor of the school. Frantically, he looks for her, the girl from his childhood. He dredges up the memories of her round face and those wonderful red glasses, eyes flicking over every face before him. After spending an irrationally long time trying to find the peach-haired girl, he heaves a sigh and leans against the wall outside of the gates.

It must have been his imagination; of course she's not here. That would be silly. Akihito rests his head back against the wall and gazes up at the clouds in the sky, painted in soft shades of pink and orange. He's not eager to get home - it's too quiet there. Instead, he stares at the twilight that's turned the color of her hair and murmurs to himself that somewhere out there, she's alive and well.

::::

Mirai chooses to approach him the next day. She feels small in her oversized pink sweater as she waits in the shadows under the staircase. Her hands are trembling, and she wishes she was more excited than apprehensive. A part of her deep inside, however, is joyful because even if things turn sour for her here and now, at least she can visibly see him again, and know that his life is good.

She freezes when she hears footsteps on the stairs and her breath quickens. The sun slants in deep shadows across the floor and her heart aches when he appears in her vision, the span of his broad shoulders. The years separating her from him had been good to him and her face begins to feel warm at his physical maturity.

"U-um," she says softly, stepping half out from her hiding spot.

He stops immediately, his body going rigid. The tremble in her hands becomes stronger and she has to fight the urge to flee. It terrifies her that of the millions of scenarios she's played in her head, this one may not go down one of the paths she prefers. Her tongue runs nervously over her chapped lips, her thumb smoothing over the rough exterior of the bandage wrapped around her right hand. Something in the pit of her stomach flutters as he turns around slowly but her heart is strong in her chest.

"H-Hi." The heat in her face travels to her hairline.

Akihito stands ten feet away, his shadow sloped over the floorboards, dark in stark contrast with golden glow of the setting sun. It lights up his face perfectly so that she can see his mouth part in surprise, his eyebrows arch. His fist clenches severely around the strap of his bag and she swears that in the dead silence of the hallway, he draws in a sharp intake of breath. Surely this is not the reaction of someone who forgot her. Her chest aches and even if this is all she ever gets out of this moment, she'll be happy.

He blinks slowly, as if he is unsure that what he's seeing is real. When he speaks, the timbre of his voice sends a shiver down Mirai's spine. "How. . ."

A smile curls at her mouth, happiness suddenly welling up in her like a wave. "It's really good to see you again." She wants to call him by his name, but it's been eight years and it might not be appropriate anymore. But _Kanbara-san_ seems too unfamiliar and she may have spent a long time without him but her feelings toward him are warmer than ever.

"It's really. . .it's you." He blinks again but then he is smiling widely and her heart flops unexpectedly in her chest as his happy-crinkled eyes appraise her. Her breath catches in her throat as he takes a few steps forward, until the toes of their shoes are separated by a mere twelve inches. The space between them feels as heavy and bloated as an elephant; her hands curl around the hem of her sweater to tame the jitters in her skin. "I knew I saw you the other day. What are you doing here?"

Mirai stares at him because his memory of her has not faded and his face is flushed with a blush. He's a lot taller than her now - the top of her head only barely clears his shoulder - and there is something very tender and exuberant about his expression. "I. . .It's a long story," she replies after a moment, unable to tear her gaze away.

He glances over his shoulder as the sound of a group of students shuffle past, a few of them hollering their goodbyes at Akihito. Her heart shudders abruptly when he smiles back at them and its both thrilling and upsetting. She never wanted to feel like _this_ when she saw him again. When he turns his eyes back to her, she's sure that her blush and her erratic heart are obvious.

"Well, I'm willing to listen," he remarks cheerfully. "I'd love to catch up with you. Wanna grab a bite to eat?"

The thought of telling him why she is here almost urges her to spurn the offer, but that would be ridiculous, all things considered. Clasping her hands behind her back, she steps around him and starts walking down the hall. "I'm hungry," she says, and its true because she always is.

Even without looking at his face, she can feel the grin in his expression and it brings her back to the days when they were inseparable. Maybe being friends again wasn't going to be as complicated as she anticipated.

::::

Somehow, they end up at his house. Akihito is unreasonably nervous as he opens the door and flicks on the light of his tiny apartment. Their supper conversation was filled with a lot of shallow, meaningless thoughts and he had noticed easily that Mirai deflected all his questions about her back onto him. It made his stomach ache - what had happened to her after he was forced to let her go? With the way she'd drop her eyes and shovel the food in her mouth, he was wary to find out.

"You're not as messy as you used to be," she observes as she steps over the threshold, no doubt recalling how his childhood room had been strewn with toys hidden under clothes, acting as unintentional land mines - more or less.

He smiles and closes the door behind her. "Yeah, cleaning is good," he replies lamely.

She snorts, her eyes sparkling with amusement. "Yeah, it really is."

There is a bloated silence for a moment before Akihito decides that walking on eggshells is not how he wants to proceed; he feels bothered knowing that she is silently refusing to talk about the rest of her childhood. "So tell me how you've been."

She blinks, her face becoming apprehensive under the sudden rosy glow on her cheeks. "I'm okay."

"Are you really?" he asks, raising an eyebrow as he sheds his jacket and takes her cardigan from her.

She brushes past him and goes to sit on the floor of his bedroom, blatantly avoiding his eyes. His suspicions get stronger as she pulls her knees to her chest, her glasses sitting crookedly on her nose. After hanging up their coats, he sits across from her, cross-legged, his eyebrows slanting downward over his gaze.

"Kuriyama," he says, "tell me how you've been."

There is a long pause and then she shrugs and he's frustrated. He already told her everything - leaving out the incident with Hiroomi, of course, because that's hardly worth the time - but she hasn't said one thing about herself, about what she's been through. He's upset that she won't even give him a little bit to go on. Every day for the last eight years, he's thought about her, wondered how she was. Akihito feels his teeth gnashing together in irritation; he reaches up to tug at his hair and takes a deep breath.

"You're driving me nuts," he admits, trying to keep calm.

She glances up at him finally, startled. "I am?"

He laughs anxiously and shakes his head. "I've been worried about you since the day you left. For all I knew, whoever killed off your clan could have come after you and I couldn't stop wondering," he confesses shamelessly, reaching for the chain hidden under the layers of clothes; her eyes go wide as he pulls it out. The ring sparkles as the light glints off its metal surface. "And you won't tell me a thing."

"_Akihito-kun_," she breathes out in a low, low voice.

He replies to her unspoken words. "Of course I kept it." His face feels hot; the way she used his name so familiarly makes him feel like he's nine years old again as he drops the chain back against his chest. "Of course I did. You gotta give me_ something_."

She gapes at him for a few long minutes and he wants her to break the silence this time because he can't quite seem to find his voice anyway. It hadn't occurred to him earlier - the shock of seeing her again at all had delayed his noticing - but he's looking at her on his bedroom floor with her knees pulled up to her chest and her crooked glasses and he's sure she's the most beautiful girl he's ever seen. She's always been pretty, he remembers, but noticing this about her _this _time feels _different_.

Her mouth twitches and the spell breaks, and he sees the resolve in her eyes. "I'm here because of you."

"Because of me?" Akihito doesn't want to immediately jump to conclusions - that she'd sought him out so that they could be friends again. The only reason he's able to reign in the sudden burst of joy is that her face turns pale and guilt-stricken. His voice becomes unexpectedly sharp. "What about me?"

Mirai knots her fingers in the fabric of her skirt and takes a deep breath. She steels herself and meets his gaze strongly, without hesitation. "I know about how you went berserk on one of the Nases," she explains in a voice that's much smaller than she intended. "That he. . .almost died."

He closes his eyes in understanding, nausea rushing through him.

Her voice trembles as she continues. "I killed someone. She was my best friend, and I killed her. She was possessed by a youmu and I was going to die. Her. . .her family hated me. They wanted me dead. They said that I should have died along with my parents in the first place. "Akihito tries to reconcile that sweet-faced Inami woman he met when she came to take Mirai away with his childhood friend's story, but he's still reeling from her words and it only strengthens the twisted feeling in his gut. "Izumi saved me from them, under the condition that I pay her a favor."

He might be sick.

Mirai is clearly holding back the tears now, her lower lip trembling violently, her eyes dropped to the floor, eyebrows drawn in sharply over her honey-amber eyes.

"She wants me to kill you."


End file.
